Page 99 of Blood Code

Dread coiled in my stomach. Somehow, I knew this would be worse than the constant violations.

I felt it in my marrow.

The Man in Black towered above me, his goons flanking him. My ribs felt too tight to hold in my heart as a cool, gloved hand stroked my cheek.

“Don’t worry, Dove. This will be over quickly enough.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Why make me run?”

“Because it was fun.” He smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “Because this is how I choose to spend my rented time… well, his rented time, but no matter.”

He raised a syringe filled with pale yellow liquid.

I jerked against my restraints. Whatever was in that syringe wouldn’t be good. “What are you going to do with that?”

He approached slowly. Painfully slowly. I tried to turn my head away, but his free hand caught my jaw and held it in place.

My nostrils flared, and I whimpered. “No. Please.”

“Open for me, beautiful.”

Instinctively, I clamped my lips shut. He wasn’t putting that stuff in my mouth. I wouldn’t let him.

But he didn’t move toward my mouth. Instead, one of his goons pressed a thumb beneath my left eye.

“No!” I howled, fighting harder, twisting against the restraints and squeezing my eye shut. “No, please.”

“I just follow his orders, Little Dove. If it were me, I wouldn’t do this to you. I like it when you watch.”

The first drop felt like heat, a warmth spreading over my cornea. My eyes slammed shut, but fingers forced them open, and two more drops followed into my left eye before they moved onto my right and repeated the process.

The liquid spread across my eyes before they finally let me blink. I squeezed them shut, desperately trying to force it out. But it didn’t work.

Then the burning came like a sharp dagger to my heart. Liquid fire tearing through the thin surface of my eye. Tears streamed down my face, flowing like the river in the woods outside.

I heard thin and animal-like sounds, and at first I didn’t realize it was me making them. But it was, because the pain was indescribable. Horrid. It bloomed through my face, and the light accosted all of my senses—the brightness unbearable. My vision turned milky, colors smearing together and shapes distorting.

I blinked over and over. Trying to clear the blur—fix it. But it didn’t clear. A soft wail climbed out of my throat. I thought they couldn’t hurt me anymore. I thought I was resilient and strong, and that nothing could affect me anymore.

I was wrong.

So, so wrong.

The Man in Black stroked a finger down my face. Soft and gentle. “We’re done now, Dove.”

I blinked, struggling to focus on his mouth, his eyes, but his features slid away like thick, wet paint running down a canvas. His expression was impossible to read.

Panic welled in my chest.

“You blinded me,” I whispered.

“Yes, Dove.” He pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Yes, Dove.”

I whimpered.

The room had become a watercolor painting without detail—only color and blur.

“Why?” I sobbed.